Developing and maintaining a strong brand for a service is significantly more challenging than developing and maintaining a strong brand for a product. Why? Because a service is less tangible, more ephemeral—and often involves multiple “touchpoints” that really determine the “brand experience.”
What makes a strong brand? Recognizability. Performance. Consistency.
When we’re talking about a product—a carbonated beverage, for example – recognizability can come through a logo and design, performance comes through the taste of the beverage, and consistency is an element of the manufacturing process.
But, when we’re talking about a service, the process of brand management becomes much more complex. Consider a healthcare system brand, for instance.
These same principles apply to any type of service business that relies on people to deliver the “product”—and the experience.
It often comes as a surprise to those in service businesses that managing the marketing process—and, specifically, the branding process, involves a significant amount of focus on managing people—which could well represent the “5th P” in the marketing mix. Developing standards and processes, communicating those standards and processes, ensuring consistency in such things, for example, how the phone is answered, “uniforms,” service standards, hand-offs between departments, how employees talk about each other, etc.
Too often as we focus on other important elements of the brand—like the logo, the name, the “company colors,” the design templates, etc., etc., in the service arena we have a tendency to forget about what is most important about the brand (recognizability, performance and consistency)—the people.
What steps are you taking to ensure your focus is as specifically on the “people” element of the 5 P’s as it is on product/service, price, place, and promotion?
Strategic Communications, LLC, works with B2B clients to help them achieve their goals through effective content marketing and management with both internal and external audiences. We work with clients to plan, create and publish high-quality, unique content. Whether on- or offline, or both, we’ll help you achieve desired results at reasonable rates.
In addition to content creation we specialize in helping B2B clients raise awareness and drive website traffic through a strong LinkedIn and Twitter presence.
(Strategic Communications is certified as a Woman-Owned Business Enterprise through the Wisconsin Department of Administration.)
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The original version of this page was published at: http://blog.stratcommunications.com/the-5th-p-in-the-marketing-mix-people-2/
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